Huh, this comes as a surprise. Taking full advantage of the fact that everyone’s twitter feed is currently dominated by talk of another major sci-fi franchise, 20th Century Fox has surprised the Internet today with the first trailer for Independence Day: Resurgence. It’s the sequel to Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich’s blockbuster that utterly dominated the summer of 1996 and raked in a galaxy-sized $817.4 million haul off a $70 million budget.

Set (and coming out) 20 years after the original film, Independence Day: Resurgence sees (some of) the original cast plus a few newcomers once again fighting against human extinction. Since the defeat of the invading aliens in the original film, mankind has recovered and reverse-engineered alien technology to beef up the planet’s defenses. And good thing too, as it’s discovered that the rapacious Alien swarm defeated in the first film managed to send out a distress signal just before being annihilated. Aware of the looming threat posed by the alien cavalry, the human race must again unite to fend them off.

Roland Emmerich once again directs, from a script he cowrote with his old partner Dean Devlin along with Nic Wright & James A. Woods, and James Vanderbilt. Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch, Vivica A. Fox, and Brent Spiner reprise their roles from the original film. They’re joined this time out by Liam Hemsworth, Jessie Usher, Maika Monroe, Sela Ward, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Joey King, Angelababy, and William Fichtner. Noticeably absent: Will Smith. The original Independence Day heralded his arrival as a major movie star, but the once and future Fresh Prince opted not to return this time out. Fortunately, Goldblum’s dry snark remains firmly intact, as does Bill Pullman’s near perfect campy seriousness.